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Thinking of Starting a Vending Machine Business? Here are Some Tips from an Expert and a Solution to Your Problems.

Written by: Kris Gundersen

Article Overview: Vending machine expert gives tips and advice to those preparing to start their own vending machine business. Learn from someone’s mistakes to avoid your own.

Thinking of Starting a Vending Machine Business? Here are Some Tips from an Expert and a Solution to Your Problems.

You are thinking of owing your own vending machine business and you probably have a lot of questions. I owned a vending machine business for eight years. Eventually, when I sold the business, I had three employees and around 200 machines, including full size Coke, Pepsi, snack machines, frozen food machines, and coffee machines. I wanted to pass on some of the experiences I had and some of the things that I learned in those eight years of running my vending machine business. I had contracts with both Coke and Pepsi so I had the opportunity of adding all the Coke or Pepsi machines that I wanted without having to purchase them. When you have a contract with Coke or Pepsi, they let you use the machines for free as long as you are buying the product from them. This is a huge advantage. If you are serious about having a vending machine business, this is a must. If you are starting without contracts and you have to purchase your beverage machines as well as your snack machines, your expenses will be much greater than mine and it will be much more difficult to make your business successful.

I do not recommend the "combo" machines that are for sale. They have one section that sells drinks, and another section that sells snacks. I had a few of these and finally got so sick of trying to keep them running that I sold them for parts. They break down continuously and have too many headaches. You end up with unhappy customers and can easily lose accounts. The best snack machines are the full size venders that have an "electronic eye." This feature detects whether or not an item has vended when someone makes a purchase. If the product didn't fall, the machine turns the auger a little bit more to make the item vend. It is worth the extra expense and is a great sales tool when getting a new account. This also protects your machines from people beating them up to get the bag of chips that is stuck inside your machine.

I started my vending business because I wanted the freedom of being home with my family while the machines were out there making money for me. It is a great idea and I was totally sold on it. At first, this worked pretty well. I was working one day a week, the rest of the time I was home with my family. But with just a few machines, I wasn't making any money and it was very difficult to find new accounts. To solve this problem, I started advertising my business.

I got a great web site that regularly brought in new clients that wanted me to put machines in their businesses. I also had an ad in the Dex yellow pages and also in their online yellow pages. These marketing methods worked very well. They cost a bit, but I figured they would bring in enough business to make it worthwhile. My business grew steadily. I got more accounts and they were better, bigger accounts. I didn't have to go searching for new business. Businesses called me, wanting me to put vending machines in their lunchrooms for them. It was wonderful! With the growth, a new problem arrived. Every time I added a new account, I had to purchase more vending machines. The Coke and Pepsi machines didn't cost me anything, which was perfect, but the bigger the accounts I got, the more machines they wanted. Every account that was of any size at all wanted a snack machine. The larger accounts also wanted a frozen food or fresh food machine and some wanted coffee as well. These additional types of machines added more headaches and more expense as time went on.

The bigger my business grew, the more time it took me to service all my machines. When I began my little business, I was filling machines one afternoon a week. As the business grew, so did my time away from home. If I could just get enough machines to be able to hire employees to fill the machines, I'd be set. I could stay home and run the business while my employees filled the machines. This was my dream.

This was time that my business was the most profitable. I was working full time running like crazy every day filling, fixing, and placing machines. I was working a full eight-hour day, every day servicing machines, and then coming home to do paperwork and order my supplies and run the office side of the business at night. It was just too much for one person to handle and I had no time for my family. It was time to hire employees. If I could just get other people filing my machines I could stay home and run the business and it would be great!

Employees brought a lot more expenses and a lot more headaches. I had a payroll company take care of the payroll for me, but I had to find and hire and train and supervise the employees. My taxes and insurance went up considerably with employees. I needed more vehicles for my employees to use. I found that having employees quickly ate up most of the profits my business was bringing in. I ended up working an 8 to 10 hour day in the office while my employees were filling machines. I was working almost as much with three employees as I was when I was all by myself. I hadn't really gained anything.

After eight years in business, the best day was the day I sold my business. I felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I had just lost 1000 pounds. It was a fantastic feeling. The money I earned from selling the business went to paying off all the machines I had purchased on loan or lease to satisfy the needs of my clients.

So, after all this, what do I recommend for you? If you are determined to have a vending machine business, make sure you have contracts with Coke and Pepsi. That is first and foremost. Advertise, but don't go very big. Try to keep your business the size that you can handle by yourself. There just aren't enough nickels and dimes in the vending business to be really profitable with employees and all the taxes and insurance and headaches that go with them. When you ad new machines, do it very slowly, pay as you go. Don't ad a new account if you can't pay cash for the machines they need.

If you are looking for a way to stay home and still make money, there is another business that you should take a look at. Before you jump into the vending machine business and work as hard as I did without the rewards you are looking for, at least take a look at this great work from home business. It is an online business that I can happily endorse and recommend to you. You can work from home and make the money you need. You will find a link to it under the author's bio. Good luck in whatever you choose to do.

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Article Tags: auger, beverage machines, chips, coffee machines, coke pepsi, contracts, drinks, electronic eye, experiences, food machines, headaches, little bit, pepsi, pepsi machines, sales tool, snack machines, snacks, unhappy customers, vending business, vending machine business



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